The US Navy Wants to Use Laser Guns on Humvees to Shoot down Drones

The future of war is looking like it will feature a lot more lasers. And amidst news the US Navy is already set to deploy its own anti-UAV laser gun in the Persian Gulf aboard the USS Ponce this summer, the service just announced more plans to put laser guns on Humvees.

In a media release titled “Bad News for the Bad Guys: Laser Weapon Being Readied for Marine Vehicles,” the Office of Naval Research (ONR) announced plans to outfit light tactical vehicles like the Humvee and Joint Light Tactical Vehicles with a new ground-to-air laser gun. Much in the same vein as the naval gun aboard the USS Ponce, the new Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-the-Move program (GBAD for short) is being designed to provide new anti-aircraft weapons system capabilities for tactical ground units.

GBAD will provide “an affordable alternative to traditional firepower” to deny enemy UAVs from tracking marine targets on the ground. This iteration of naval laser gun will be a 30kW system powered by batteries, which could significantly cut down on traditional ammo costs.

In other words, it sounds like the project is preparing for a future war environment where hostiles have access to surveillance quadcopters for target identification. Or in a worse case scenario, have weaponized drones shooting at soldiers.

While heretofore the US military has had a technological advantage in drones, the proliferation of UAVs has forced the US to address new battlefield scenarios. Though the likes of Hezbollah have cobbled together less than high-tech drones, we know Iran and China, two of the biggest geopolitical rivals of America, are in possession of a sophisticated fleet of drones—meaning American forces can safely assume they’ll encounter similar aerial threats in future war zones.

When I attended CANSEC in May, Canada’s premier defense trade show, Meggit Canada was hawking a training UAV with a mounted semiautomatic rifle. Company reps told me it was a working prototype used to train soldiers against the emerging threat of weaponized quadcopters. Although it only shot paintball-like training rounds (but could shoot live ammunition), it illustrates the potential of a basic UAV to be weaponized.

One top marine involved with the GBAD program agrees that battlefields will soon feature hostile drones. “We can expect that our adversaries will increasingly use UAVs and our expeditionary forces must deal with that rising threat,” said Colonel William Zamagni in a release. “GBAD gives the Marine Corps a capability to counter the UAV threat efficiently, sustainably and organically with austere expeditionary forces.”

The release says the laser gun is being developed as a direct response to the Marine Corps Science and Technology Strategic Plan, a wide-ranging plan set to prepare marines with “cutting edge technology” for future wars. The 2012 plan calls for a “mobile directed-energy weapon” specifically to take down UAVs, which the GBAD addresses if successful. The 30kW laser mounted weapon won’t be ready until at least 2016, but the release mentions that integral pieces of equipment have already been tested on the detection and tracking of UAVs of all sizes.

If cost-cutting on ammo budgets is what gets laser guns its chance in the US military, it's possible you’ll see more with deep defense cuts on the horizon. That being said, there hasn’t yet been a concerted effort by army types to outfit the kind of Star Wars laser rifles that stormtroopers shoot, which, if we're honest with ourselves, is what everyone wants to see.